TALKING PICTURES

Who's your toothsome fave?

November 21, 2008|By Michael Phillips

Max Schreck played one for F.W. Murnau in the silent era. Bela Lugosi played one, first on Broadway, then on screen in 1931, igniting a series of Depression-defying horror items in the early sound years.

Bram Stoker's or otherwise, these vampires are everywhere. They're on "True Blood" on HBO, campaigning for civil rights and equal opportunity in between neck snacks. And there's a little pop phenom called "Twilight" in the theaters right now, based on Stephenie Meyer's best-selling series of books.

Even if the "Twilight" niche doesn't happen to be yours -- novelist and blogger Alisa Valdes-Rodriguez recently characterized "Twilight" as appealing "mostly to older girls [14 to 19] and their sexually frustrated mothers" -- the mythology of the seductive, mournfully destructive undead has proved hardy indeed.

Think of all the Draculas and Nosferatus alone! In addition to Schreck and Lugosi, there's Willem Dafoe, who played Schreck as a vampire in "Shadow of the Vampire." Klaus Kinski, in the "Nosferatu" remake from Werner Herzog. Frank Langella, soon to hit screens in "Frost/Nixon," played Dracula on Broadway and in the movies, as Lugosi did. Gary Oldman in "Bram Stoker's Dracula," which was a lot more about Francis Coppola's Dracula than Stoker's. Branch out a bit, and the line of bloodsuckers runs from David Niven and Nicolas Cage to Eddie Murphy to Wesley Snipes to Kate Beckinsale. Don't forget "The Fearless Vampire Killers." And while Carl Dreyer's "Vampyr" may not delve into conventional vampire iconography or narrative, it is an atmospheric wonder.

My question is simple. Who's your favorite vampire? Are you strictly a Lugosi purist (dang, I forgot Martin Landau as Lugosi in "Ed Wood"!), or does your bloodthirsty unholy undead taste run more toward the mall-packing wavy-haired femme magnet of the Robert Pattinson variety?

Opinions, please, at chicagotribune.com/talkingpictures or at mjphillips@tribune.com.

Just suck it up, and do it.

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mjphillips@tribune.com

Vamping on vampires: For more "Twilight"-related discussions, visit chicagotribune.com/talkingpictures